Sawatch

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg, Ethan Greene · Jan 18, 2019 · Sawatch

Weather

Limited visibility with obscured skies and significant blowing snow at all elevations. The new snow is very dense.

Snowpack

Numerous thundering collapses on low angle terrain. We traveled like the danger was HIGH today and avoided all avalanche terrain and even subtle terrain features that looked close to 30 degrees. The visibility wasn't very good so it was hard to see evidence of recent avalanche activity. The snowpack in this area is weak with about one-third of the total snow depth being deposited in the last few days. When we got out of our skis we would sink to the ground. We dug one snowpit on an east-facing near treeline slope. This was adjacent to a recent avalanche that fully buried a snowmobiler on January 17. We found a snow depth of 160 cm. The avalanche likely broke on a faceted snow layer that is now 75 cm from the surface. The only propagating results in ECTs were at 43 cm down on small facets below a very thin crust (ECTP21). This was likely not the culprit weak layer in the avalanche but is now a weak layer of concern.